Sideways

Rating: **** (out of 4)
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh
Director: Alexander Payne
Year of release: 2004

Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) is a middle-aged man who is stuck in a stagnant job teaching English in high school. His true ambition, which is to become a writer, is going nowhere with his novel struggling to get published. His marriage too, failed 2 years ago. Everyday, after work, he comes back to a empty, lonely home. He has a habit of dining alone in quiet corners of restaurants.

Romantic life? Miles has more or less gave up on that prospect. With a balding hair, bulging tummy and fading youth, Miles runs low on confidence on how he looks and his own perceived career failure, and he thinks that no women will find him attractive for that. So dejected is he that when an attractive waitress Maya (Virginia Madsen) whom he had secretly taken a liking on asked him what is he doing for the night, he dully said to her 'You know, I am kind of tired by the day's traveling so I guess I will just go back to the Motel room to sleep'.

No, he's not a homo. But he sometimes gets so sicked of his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church)'s persistence on setting him up for dates that he will say 'Alright, alright, I am a homo. Give me a gay confession letter and I'll sign it. Just don't push me any further!'

Thank God, he has a way to light up his depressed life with his whole-hearted passion on wine. A passion like this may seems like a trivial hobby to others, but writer-director Alexander Payne knows that to someone like Miles, it is by no way just a hobby. It is in fact, a critical element that keeps him going with his life.

That shows incredibly sharp observation on human nature by the writer-director. That quality is also what makes 'Sideways' such a heartfelt, moving and wonderful film. It is road movie at its most inspiring. Payne understands that people like Miles is quite common among us. Hell, it can even be you or me. Majority of us, like it or not, lives an ordinary life. Many of us goes on with our monotonous life routine with ideals and dreams unfulfilled, and there comes a time when we start questioning the whole meaning of our lives and grow insecure over it. A classic case of mid life crisis and Payne (and his co-writer Jim Taylor) made a hero out of it, unconventional in every sense and devoid of any screen stereotype. Brilliant.

Mile's best friend Jack is getting married in a week's time. To celebrate Jack's last week of bachelor-hood, Miles treats him to a wine tasting road trip across California wine countryside. But Jack, a wine dummy, is not having it. He has his own plan of playboy adventure and dragged the reluctant Miles along in his adventure. So, the wine-tasting road trip turned sideways into something else, a delightful journey of life and tentatitve tender romance.

The romance between Miles and Maya (Virginia Madsen) is masterfully executed. Haunted by past marriage failures, they have both turned into passive mode in their respective romantic life. It was Jack who set them up and in their first gathering, there is this unavoidable awkwardness to start a topic. It helps that they both share a passion in wine and conveniently they launched into conversation sharing their passion on wines. The conversation gradually turned into something more personal and there comes the indecisiveness in Miles' part to 'make the move', and When he finally made it, they both turned unsure about what they are doing and calls it a day. All these are masterful sequence that we want to see it again and again to savor it, because it felt so personal. Alexander Payne understands how two lonely souls like Miles and Maya will progress on their relationship, and he filmed it in near perfection, not a false note, just all the right tone.

Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen all gave performances that when we view it, we can't think of any other actors who can substitute them to better effect.


'Sideways' could just turn up to be one of my all time favourite. It's the kind of film you want to see it again, even though you would have known its story and plot after the first viewing. You want to see it to savor the human experience, not to comprehend what happens in the plot. I have seen 2 films by Alexander Payne prior to this, 'Election' and 'About Schmidt'. They are both intelligent, great films. 'Sideways' topped them all, it is a wonderful, wonderful film.

Watch out for Alexander Payne for more great films.


* 'Sideways' was nominated for 5 Oscars in the 2005 Academy Awards, for best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best supporting actor and best supporting actress. It won the best adapted screenplay Oscar for Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor's excellent screenplay.

Vengeance (復仇)

Rating: ***1/2 (out of 4)
Cast: Johnny Hallyday, Anthony Wong, Simon Yam
Director: Johnnie To
Language: In English and Cantonese with English Subtitle



A Cannes 2009's official selection, Johnnie To's Vengeance is a stylish revenge thriller. Stylish, because it is filmed in noir-ish style, with atmospheric, moody locations in Macau and Hong Kong. The visual, especially the night images in Macau, is breathtakingly beautiful. This is a quality rarely seen in mediocre HK productions. For that matter, 'Vengeance' is a French-HK co-production, a refreshingly crafted genre piece.

The film opens with a brutal massacre; a french woman with her Chinese husband and children were gunned down in their Macau home.

Johnny Hallyday, a french rock legend, played the woman's father, Costello. He came hurriedly to Macau, in time to listen to his dying daughter's last words. She begged to her father for revenge.

Johnny Hallyday's Costello is one of the more memorable leading man's performance I have seen this year. Charismatic and assuring, he brings to the screen the kind of seen-it-all, done-it-all world-weariness. Costello was in fact, a weathered professional hitman who last used a gun 20 years ago. In the presence of dangerous men, Costello showed cool calmness.

But, he is after all, a stranger in a foreign land. So, he hired a trio of professional hitmen, played by Anthony Wong, Lam Suet and Lam Ka-tung. The trio were initally vowed by the attractive compensation offered by Costello, but eventually developed a sympathy and bonding with Costello, and sets out on a dangerous adventure to help him in his vengeance.

What I like about this film, apart from its stylish visuals and memorable acting performances, is the poignancy amidst the blood-splattering violence. The hitmen in this film, despite their profession, are professionals who operate with a code of honour. They will get the job done, doing their best to spare innocent lives. When the trio (Anthony Wong, Lam Suet and Lam Ka-tung) were finishing of a unfaithful mistress of their employer, they unexpectedly bumped into a stranger (Costello) at the Hotel aisle. They hesitated on what to do, although they all knew that they should kill Costello, because Costello had seen their face.

Or consider the other trio of hitmen, when they were executing their job to finish off Costello's daughter and family. There were children hiding in the cupboard, and one of the hitman is about to open it. 'Don't open!' his leader said to him. If the cupboard's door is not opened, the children would not have seen the hitman's face and thus their innocent lives would have been spared.

Consider also when Costello with his 3 buddies came confronting the 3 hitmen who have killed his family. A BBQ party was taking place with wives and children present. Costello and gang sat patiently waiting for the party to end and the wives and children to leave the scene. 'They don't have to see this', one of them said.

* Johnnie To's 'Vengeance' is an official selection (in competition) for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival

Up

Rating: ** (out of 4)
Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson

This year edition of the Cannes Film Festival made a history, it was the frst time the film festival opened with an animated feature in its opening night. Critical acclaim has been tremendously good since then for 'Up', with a near unanimous praise from critics. It scores 97% at the tomato meter.

Due to this, my expectation was sky high, I was expecting a rousing good time as I did with 'Ratatouille'.

Yet, I felt underwhelmed throughout the screening, and remained so after the end of the screening.

Something's wrong with me?

I admit that I had not had a extensive viewing experience of animated features. My adult cynicism sometimes prevent me from enjoying a pure children fantasy, thus I found Robert Zemeckis's 'The Polar Express' to be boring. Yet, I did thoroughly enjoyed 'The Lion King', 'Monster Inc', 'Shrek', and above all, 'Ratatouille', which I counted as one of the top films of the year.

In 'Up', there are undeniably brilliant moments. The silent montage narrating the life story of Carl and Ellie Fredriksen from their marriage till the old age is inspirational, by far the film's most memorable moment for me.

The rest of the film, sorry to say, it's too much of a children fable that I struggled to believe in. The moment when Carl lifted his house by helium balloons, just when he was about to surrender himself to social welfare officials, is supposed to be a big, triumphal moment. Yet, strangely, it came about so muted in terms of emotional pay-off. Surely, it could have been better told.

Characterization is not great. The chubby boy Russell is more annoying than lovable to me, his adoration towards the Kevin the bird is hardly convincing and this dragged the second half Indiana Jones-like action adventure to be workman-like. Speaking of which, I would also note that while I appreciated the filmmakers' meticulous details on old Carl's physical constraint at the beginning of the film, the filmmakers seems got carried away when staging the action adventure, making old Carl turning into an all-action Indiana Jones-like figure.

'Up' is a meditation on childlike state of innocence, of unrealized childhood dream. I am somewhat doubtful if it appeals to the adult viewers. 'Ratatouille', on the other hand, works on a higher realm with weighty commentary on what art means in real life, and it did it brilliantly all within a package both adult and children can enjoy.

Curious to find out if I am the odd one who is disappointed with 'Up', I went to rottentomatoes.com and did find 2 prominent critics, Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal, and Stephanie Zacharek of salon.com, who were disappointed with it.

Still, we are the minority. This review is just my honest, personal opinion.

District 9

Rating: ***1/2 (out of 4)
Director: Neil Blomkamp
Cast: Sharlto Copely, Jason Cope, David James

After my thrashing of 'Transformers 2', I have been looking forward to a perfect counterpart to that, something that works within similar subject matter and aim to achieve the same goal, that is, to entertain, and yet did it with flying colours. Here it is, 'District 9' is one such movie.

A giant space ship hovered over Johannesburgh. Inside the space ship, close to a million of aliens were starving to death. Sympathetic South African decided to relocate the aliens to 'District 9', a slum-like location not unlike a refugee camp.

The aliens are called 'prawns' by the human, because that's what they resemble. The residents of Johannesburgh eventually grew wary of the aliens who live like gangsters, and they want them out. The goverment decides to relocate the aliens to District 10, a concerntration camp out of town. The dangerous relocation operation is outsourced to a private security firm called Multinational United (MNU).

Despite the intriguing sci-fi premise that evokes parallel to our treatment of human refugee and the racial segregation policy under apartheid, the movie is really more interested about being a standard fugitive action thrill ride. The relocation operation is handed by a dedicated and honest agent named Vikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copely). Considerting the hostility of the aliens towards the eviction order, the operation is hardly lucrative business to MNU. What draws MNU to the job, is the prospect of harnessing the secret of the biological based alien weaponary, which is not operatable by human, only the aliens are able to operate them.

Something went wrong during the operation, and Vikus is turning into a prawn, and find himself able to operate the alien weapons. Both MNU and Nigerian gangsters set out to hunt him down as a key asset to uncover the secret of the alien weapons. Vikus turned fugitive and took refugee in District 9, and foud an unlikely ally in a prawn named Christopher Johnson and his son.

'District 9' isn't exactly a philosophical science fiction. It has an intelligent sci-fi premise that serves as a parable for some social commentary, but ultimately it is a formulaic mad-operation-goes-wrong-and-good-guy-turns-fugitive type of standard piece, as in Michael Bay's 'The Island'. It is also meant to be an action-packed entertainment with special effect as the centre piece, as in 'Transformers 2', but what a huge difference in terms of quality. 'District 9' has an intelligent sci-fi premise, a documentary-like narrative style that lends realism to the film, a protagonist in Vikus whom we believe in and care for, an emotional core in Vikus's relationship with Christopher the alien and his son, and awesome special effects. It is quite a complete package, scoring in each of the departments. A special mention to the special effects, that's what special effects ought to be; visually fascinating and felt necessary in the context of the story, a striking contrast as compared to Transformers 2's excessive, noisy, incomprehensible, seonsors-numbing special effects.

The plot may be formulaic, and the material may be mostly standard genre piece. That's the kind of film producer Peter Jackson and director Neil Blomkamp want to make and have made to very good effect. The lightness in its substance is hardly a problem in view of the skillful execution. Throughly entertaining and a rare commercial gem.

Overheard (窃听风云)

Rating: **1/2 (out of 4)
Cast: Lau Ching Wan, Louis Koo, Daniel Wu
Director: Alan Mak, Felix Chong
Language: Cantonese with English subtitle

From the screenwriting partnership that brought us 'Infernal Affairs' (无间道), 'Overheard' tells the story of an operation by the Hong Kong Police Force Commercial Crime Bureau to infiltrate internal communication of a listed corporation, Feng Hua International, whose directors were suspected of being involved in insider trading. The operation, led by a trio of seasoned policemen, Inspector Leung (Lau Ching Wan), Yeung (Louis Koo) and Lam (Daniel Wu) , installed cutting-edge interception devices within office premise of Feng Hua International to monitor its internal communication.

The terminally ill Yeung is short of money. When he and Lam came across an insider information during their monitoring routine, the temptation of making some quick bucks proves to strong to be resisted. The alert team lead, Leung, spot his subordinates' action and tried to stop them, but even his value of integrity wavered in the moment filled with temptation and dilemma.

They crossed the line, seemingly innocent at the beginning. However, each subsequent action to cover up their crime brought them deeper and deeper into trouble, until it is no longer possible to turn back and say 'I did it'. In Inspector Leung own words, 'If we want to cheat, cheat until the very end'.

The filmmakers, Alan Mak and Felix Chong, tried to tell the story with a heart. The private life of the main protagonists, particularly Leung and Yeung, is given substantial treatment, this is a film who cares about its characters.

All these are commendable. I, however, have a thing or two to say about some of the film's flaws.

Firstly, the love triangle involving Inspector Leung is distracting, and unnecessarily complicates the story. Secondly, the plot, fairly convincing in the beginning, starts to fall apart towards the 4th quarter of the film, descending into a series of implausible twist and turn of events, leading to a finale that is overly sensationalized, it felt contrived.

Why, isn't that the very same flaws that prevented Neil Jordan and Jodie Foster's 'The Brave One' to become a memorable film that it ought to be?

The story arc, where it all began as a fairly innocent criminal act which subsequently spiralled deeper and deeper with each subsequent act to conceal the criminal deed, has been told far more effectively in a couple of outstanding films I have watched, I recommend Sam Raimi's 'A Simple Plan' and Sidney Lumet's 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead'.

Public Enemies

Rating: *** (out of 4)
Cast: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard
Director: Michael Mann

John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) made a very interesting gangster. He robbed banks, lots of banks, and revealed his occupation straight to the girl he was trying to court on their first encounter. A criminal who doesn't lie? Interesting.

He is a man of principle, living by his code of ethics. He took the bankers money but turned away a frightened bank customer who handed him his money. 'I hate kidnapping, the public hate kidnapping'. A bank robber who cares about his public image? Interesting.

He is a man of his words, especially to his lady. He promised Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) that he will take care of her, and kept his words, even if that meant he had to come right into a troop of federal agents led by Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) in order to get her away. A romantic gangster? Interesting.

All the above, are apparently based on facts, not sensationalized. Yes, Michael Mann's 'Public Enemies' is a faithful adaptation of the book 'Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34' by Bryab Burrough, which chronicles the 13 months between the day Dillinger escaped from the prison and the day he was shot dead, a period he mainly spent robbing banks. So faithful that Mann did not try to pretend that he knows what was driving Dillinger to his bank-robbing spree. The fact is, nobody knows, and probably nobody ever will.

Mann stubbornly stayed true to that, refusing to dramatize Dillinger's criminal life by providing an explanation on why he did that.

Being honest and sincere is often seen as a virtue in film making. But for once, it felt like a handicap in Mann's 'Public Enemies'. I tried to understand why; perhaps it is because an incredible feat like a 13-year bank robbing spree does need a subtext in order to be convincingly told.

In Mann's 'Collateral', a much better film, Mann too gave us something similar; a cold-blooded professional hit man played by Tom Cruise, who get the job done with no remorse. In that film too, little subtext was given to explain what's driving the hit man all along. However, the lack of subtext was hardly a problem in that film, because the film basically told what happened within that night, a much limited time scope as compare to a 13-year period, so we just ride along witnessing the event unfold on that night.

For once, I wish for the filmmaker to embrace the artistic liberty to dramatize actual fact in order to provide an emotional core to the film, even if that means hypothesizing a theory on what's driving Dillinger all along.

So, ironically, Mann's deliberate choice to stay faithful and honest has somewhat limit this otherwise technically impressive gangster flick. It lacks an emotional core.

Other than that, Mann's 'Public Enemies' is a great-looking period piece. Impressively shot by Mann, with awesome shoot-up scenes, and a stellar casts who gave fine acting performances, all set amidst a stunning art direction that brought depression era America back to life.

It may lack a heart, but visually and technically, it is worth the time and ticket price.

My Tribute to Yasmin Ahmad

It is with deep sorrow that, when I was writing this, acclaimed Malaysian film director, Yasmin Ahmad, had left us forever. She suffered a stroke and passed away on 11.25 pm Saturday, 25th July 2009

Yasmin was one of the finest filmmakers Malaysia has ever produced. Her films include Rabun (2003), Sepet (2004), Gubra (2006), Mukhsin (2006), Muallaf (2008) and Talentime (2009). She won a couple of international awards for her films.

Yasmin's films are a delight to watch. She was arguably the first Malaysian filmmaker who is bold enough to paint a honest and sincere portrayal of the multi-racial Malaysian society, something which had been deemed too sensitive all this while.

She exhibited a sharp observation on humanity, the way human talk and interact. In her films, her characters will talk and interact just in a way they will talk in real life, a level of honesty and sincerity that is rarely seen in Malaysian films. She also injected a sense of humour that is heart warming to watch, and made her characters extremely likable and believable.

Her films are often exquisite portraits of love and sentimentality. Her films reminded us that true religious faith is about compassion and tolerance, rather than deviating religious faith to a level of hypocrisy, as certain quarters have done.

Her 'Gubra' is one of my all time favourite, one of the best film I have seen.

On May 2009, much to my surprise and honour, Yasmin joined this blog as a follower.

Losing her is painful.

Always cheerful and optimistic, Yasmin would not be happy to see us grieved over her departures. Yasmin loves films, let's move on and continue making, watching, supporting and discussing about films, we would be continuing and championing her passion in that way.

Kak Yasmin, your spirit will live on!